Butter Baked Chicken Thighs with Garlic

For several years the wife and I have been making Garlic Chicken. It was actually a long involved process of cutting the chicken into bite size pieces flashing frying the chicken in a wok then sautéing minced garlic in butter and then combining the garlic and chicken making sure the garlic didn’t burn. To be honest the worst part of making this was that the prep time was twice as long as the cooking time. We absolutely loved the flavor of this dish and would continue to make it over the years. The other day I was trying to find something simple to make for dinner since I was only going to be cooking for myself as the wife is out west house sitting for my daughter and son-in-law while they were in England for his father’s birthday.

I wanted to try to get the flavor of the Garlic Chicken but because I had all our animals to take care of I didn’t want to be stuck in the kitchen prepping the meal all night I decided to try making the same dish in a slightly different way.

What I did greatly reduced the prep time and let me put the chicken in the oven for 30 minutes and let me take care of walking the dog and feeding the dog and the other animals dinner so I could eat in peace.

I started out by taking a stick of butter and greased a baking dish with the butter. Preheat your oven to 375.

I then took the same stick of butter and threw it in a saute pan over medium low heat and melted the butter.

While the butter was melting I took six cloves of garlic and smashed them with the side of my knife. Removed the peels after smashing makes it much easier to peel.

Mince the garlic. Now I know some people don’t like mincing garlic because you get the garlic smell all over your fingers but there is an easy trick to getting the garlic smell off your fingers. After you are done mincing all you need to do is rub your hands with stainless steel. Most of us have stainless steel faucets in the kitchen but if you don’t most common flatware is made from stainless steel so you could use that.

Add the garlic to the melted butter in the pan and saute until golden, do not let the garlic turn brown and burn if you do it will have a highly bitter taste.

Remove from the heat and add a teaspoon of dried rosemary to the butter sauce. What I like to do when I use dried herbs is rub them between my fingertips to release the oils from inside.

Pat the chicken thighs dry with a paper towel and season both sides salt and pepper. Lay the thighs in the baking dish and pour the garlic butter sauce over the chicken.

One tip at this point flip each piece of chicken so that the garlic in under the chicken thighs so that it doesn’t burn in the oven.

Place the baking dish in the oven for 30-35 minutes depending on your oven. About half way through the cooking time take a spoon and baste the chicken with the sauce from the baking dish.

When done I served mine over basmati rice with a side of green beans. Spoon some of the sauce over the chicken and rice, I even spooned some sauce over my beans.

4-5 boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 stick butter
6 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

using the tip of a stick of butter grease a small baking dish
preheat oven to 375
melt stick of butter in saute pan over medium low heat
mince 6 cloves of garlic
saute minced garlic in butter until golden
remove from heat
add dried rosemary to sauce
pat dry chicken and season all sides with salt and pepper
lay chicken in backing dish and pour butter sauce over chicken hitting all the thighs
flip the chicken so garlic is on the bottom
place in oven for 30-35 minutes depending on the oven
half way through cooking time baste thighs with the sauce from the baking dish
remove from oven serve over rice